How I Raised It - The podcast where we interview startup founders who raised capital.

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Mar 13, 2023 • 41min

Ep. 255 How I Raised It with Mir Hwang of GigFinesse

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Mir Hwang of GigFinesse, a startup that connects live music venues with thousands of artists from across the country, allowing them to curate shows (www.gigfinesse.com). In this episode we talk about being scrappy and how to tap non-dilutive funding sources, raising capital in a down market, getting to "no" as fast as possible, what to do when a Junior Analyst at a venture firm calls you, his "33% Rule" for living, and more. GigFinesse most recently raised a raised a $3.6 million seed round. Investors included Bessemer Ventures Partners, and Cosmic Venture Partners. Other investors include Montero Ventures and the NYU Innovation Venture Fund. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.
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Mar 1, 2023 • 40min

Ep. 254 How I Raised It with Sebastian Baier of Buynomics

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Sebastian Baier of Buynomics, a revenue optimization platform that helps companies with pricing, promotion, and other commercial decisions. In this episode we talk about blue ocean strategy - how to define a new market category that investors may not have heard of before. We also talk about the German startup scene, raising capital in Europe, optimizing valuation over a 10 year horizon, preparing for due diligence and more. Buynomics most recently raised €13M in Series A funding from Insight Partners with participation from existing investors LaFamiglia, Seedcamp, Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures (DvH Ventures), and Tomahawk. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.
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Feb 3, 2023 • 47min

Ep. 253 How I Raised It with Hubert Palan of Productboard

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Hubert Palan of Productboard.com, a software platform that helps product managers collect customer desires and plan and prioritize product roadmaps. In this episode we go deep into both product management and fundraising. On the product side, Hubert gives advice for new Product Managers, striking a balance between the needs of sales and customer support, and how to prioritize a product roadmap. On the funding side, he shares his approach for how and why he’s raised $260 million in venture capital (all the way to Series D), tips for thoughtfully deploying a large cash war chest, tips for screening and vetting investors, and more. Productboard has raised $260 million in total. The most recent raise was a $125M Series D funding round led by Dragoneer Investment Group and Tiger Global, with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, and Credo Ventures. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.
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Jan 25, 2023 • 44min

Ep. 252 How I Raised It with Jennifer Smith of Scribe

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Jennifer Smith of Scribe (https://scribehow.com/), a platform that helps you turn any process into a step-by-step guide. In this episode, we discuss her time in management consulting (and whether consultants make good founders), how she ran a really tight, 2-week process, raising capital while pregnant, how fundraising is like dating, and much more. Scribe has raised a total of $30 million in funding including a $22M Series A and an $8M seed round. The Series A was led by Tiger Global Management. Other investors include Amplify Partners, who led the seed, along with Haystack Ventures, XYZ Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Morado Ventures, and SEV. Angel investors include John Thompson (former chairman of Microsoft), Scott Belsky (Chief Product Officer at Adobe), Nick Mehta (CEO of Gainsight) and Eric Wu (CEO of Opendoor). How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.
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Jan 21, 2023 • 41min

Ep. 251 How I Raised It with Dan Shapiro of Glowforge

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Dan Shapiro of Glowforge (www.glowforge.com), makers of a desktop 3-D laser printer. In this episode, we discuss his experience as a multi-startup founder, why it's a mistake to ask for intros, when to play the "CEO card" with your employees, tips for building investor relationships at events, and much more. Glowforge has raised a total of $70 million since its 2015 founding, including the most recent round, a $43 million Series E led by DFJ Growth. Co- and previous investors include Foundry Group, Revolution Growth, True Ventures, and others. The Company also raised a crowdfunding round of over $29 million. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.
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Dec 8, 2022 • 39min

Ep. 250 How I Raised It with Abhishek Nayak of Appsmith

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Abhishek Nayak of Appsmith, an open source workbench for building internal software tools (https://www.appsmith.com/). In this episode, we discuss his time as EIR at the VC firm Accel India, the Indian startup scene and how it's different from the USA scene, tips for raising capital, and more. We also go deep into how to engineer growth for a startup without paying for marketing (highly valuable tips!). Appsmith has raised $52 million over three rounds, including a $41 million Series B funding led by Insight Partners, with participation from Accel, Canaan, OSS Capital, and angel investors including Jeff Hammerbacher, co-founder of Cloudera, and Abhinav Asthana, co-founder of Postman. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.
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Nov 30, 2022 • 36min

Ep. 249 How I Raised It with Celeste Ford of Stellar Ventures

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Celeste Ford of Stellar Ventures. a woman-led venture capital firm investing in early-stage, mission driven technology companies and entrepreneurs focused on space. In this episode we talk about the investment opportunities in space tech, what types of deals she's looking for, what it was like to be a woman in the space industry, how she raised her fund from individuals and family offices, how to overcome the challenges of raising a first-time fund, and more. Stellar Ventures' first fund, the Andromeda Fund, has $23 million in capital to invest into startups. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.
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Nov 14, 2022 • 25min

Ep. 248 How I Raised It with Mariusz Adamski of ffVC Blue and Yellow Fund

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Mariusz Adamski of the ffVC.com "Blue and Yellow Heritage Fund," a venture capital fund that invests in startups led by Ukrainian founders, startups relocated from Ukraine and startups that employ Ukrainian refugees. See https://ffvc.com/ukraine/ In this episode we talk about the Ukrainian and Polish startup ecosystems, why Ukraine's startup scene is developing rapidly, what stage and type of startups that ffVC is seeking, and more. The ff Blue & Yellow Heritage Fund has received early commitments for $30m from institutional, family offices and corporate investors. The Fund is targeting $50mm in total. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.
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Oct 13, 2022 • 52min

Ep. 247 How I Raised It with Raj Nathan of Startup Hypeman

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Raj Nathan of Startup Hypeman (https://www.startuphypeman.com/) a pitch deck and presentation coach and consultant. In this episode we go deep into pitch decks, including what makes a bad deck, Raj's process for creating a deck, examples of a killer elevator pitch, why you should teach an audience how to measure your success, how to make your pitch be entertaining and memorable, tips for pitching on Zoom, and more. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.
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Sep 30, 2022 • 37min

Ep. 246 How I Raised It with Eva Dobrzanska of True Altitude

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Eva Dobrzanska of True Altitude (https://www.truealtitude.com/) a consulting firm that helps startups raise capital and scale up. In this episode we talk about how to figure out how much to raise, determining valuation, tips for maintaining a dialogue with investors, tips for pitching, what metrics to show, and more. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9.7 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.

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